WikipediaVision visualizes just how global Wikipedia is

A few weeks ago, I wrote about an app that showed Wikipedia updates in real-time. The information flew by quickly in a stream, showing exactly how active the site is with updates and edits.

If you weren’t impressed with that, then you should definitely check out WikipediaVision.

The app shows updates close to real-time, but plots them on a Google Map showing how truly global Wikipedia is. One second, there’s an updated in Philadelphia, the next there’s one in Paris. It’s even more mesmerizing than watching a stream of text.

Around the world in 3 Wikipedia edits

This is another one of those fun apps that is great to set up on a second monitor that surely beats a boring screensaver.

WikipediaVision gives you the location of the edit, as well as a link to the actual page. It’s unlikely that you’ll click all of the edits you see, it’s quite interesting to see the difference in the type of pages that get edited in each corner of the globe. After watching the app for five minutes, I saw quite a few Wikipedia updates on television shows in the United States.

While WikipediaVision isn’t fully real-time, it’s pretty close. Get ready to lose at least 15 minutes of your productivity upon first glance. Visualizations like this really put the importance and scale of Wikipedia into context.

Drew Olanoff was The Next Web's West Coast Editor. He coined the phrase "Social Good" and invented the "donation by action" model for online charitable movements. He founded #BlameDrewsCancer. You can follow him on Twitter, Google+, Facebook, or email drew@thenextweb.com